MULTIPLE AGREEMENT CONSTRUCTIONS: A MACRO-COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PSEUDO-COORDINATION WITH THE MOTION VERB GO IN THE ARABIC AND SICILIAN DIALECTS
MULTIPLE AGREEMENT CONSTRUCTIONS: A MACRO-COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PSEUDO-COORDINATION WITH THE MOTION VERB GO IN THE ARABIC AND SICILIAN DIALECTS

Summary/Abstract: I discuss some syntactic properties of GO in verbal Pseudo-Coordination, in which it is followed by an inflected lexical verb and preceded by an optional connecting element. Following the analysis in Cardinaletti and Giusti (2001, 2003), I consider examples from different Sicilian varieties to show that the ones from the Eastern Coast (Di Caro 2015), where GO can become grammaticalized as an aspect marker and thus lose its argument structure and its semantics of motion, are reminiscent of some Multiple Agreement Constructions displayed by most Arabic dialects (Jarad 2014). In both groups of languages, the grammaticalized GO can also occur in an invariant and phonetically eroded version. In the macro-comparison I am proposing, I suggest language contact between Arabs/Berbers and the indigenous people in Sicily from 9th to 13th century as a factor in the productivity of Sicilian Pseudo-Coordination as an isolated case in the Romance domain.

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